Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
ardently to visit. But it seemed to evade me, in the - tangle 
of syringa and wild roses which linked the overgrown 
laurels together. I never could find out the path to it, 
till at last one day, behind a fallen Irish yew, I fancied I 
descried a tiny iron gate. The Man with the Axe, who at 
present haunts here, being summoned, speedily cleared a 
way, and I found myself in a dear little enclosed garden, 
where it is evident in spring there will be masses of prim- 
roses. In the meantime it is all beechmast from the over- 
hanging big beech-tree, and evidently a favourite squirrel 
haunt. I must plant lilies here ; it looks just the place for 
them, if only it does not prove too shady. Trees, trees, 
trees, even laurel-trees, broom and giant nettles and wild 
roses make a wood like that of the Sleeping Beauty ; one 
almost expects to see the Prince come wandering along the 
grass-grown paths invaded by the primroses and London 
Pride. No near neighbours ; only the Gateway Farm, with 
its massive stone entrance and front covered with honey- 
suckle and Flame flower, its windows full of red and 
white geraniums, and by the door the row of silvery 
herrings threaded on a stick without which no Borderer’s 
door is complete, and over it an old rusty horseshoe. I 
remember one day I inquired as to the meaning of the 
horseshoe, and the farmer’s wife said it meant nothing, it 
was just there for a bit of foolishness. I believe, all the 
same, it owed its elevation to a lurking belief in its efficacy 
to keep off ghosts and witches, such as caused the carving 
of horseshoes on the little stone prie-dieu in Melrose Abbey, 
which in a crabbed Latin inscription requests to this day 
prayers for the soul of Brother Peter the treasurer. Be- 
yond the little river, or the “Water,” as it is called here, stands 
an ancient ivied kirk, with its modern manse, a few slated 
and thatched cottages near by, and, of course, the inevitable 
Board school. Very soon, alas, thatchers will be unknown 
on the Border, and the pretty art will be forgotten. Great 
tranquillity, only broken by the occasional cries to his team of 
Jock the ploughman in the neighbouring fields, or children 
at play on the farther river bank. I think I will keep a 
6 
